It all begins at nighttime on a dark, gaslit street in Victorian London, with a young woman who seems to only speak French, prone to screaming, bound and gagged in a sack, carried by a brutish-looking man called Ketch, who knocks on the door of a particular house on Wellclose Square that is owned by someone only referred to as “the Jew.” As Ketch tells the three figures who answer the door–one a mesmerizing young man, the second a striking young woman with prematurely shock-white hair, and the third a tall, imposing golem made entirely of clay–“Man in The Three Cripples said as how the Jew would pay for screaming girls.” Thus sets off Charlie Fletcher’s dark, rich, labyrinthine The Oversight, the first novel in what promises to be a brilliant supernatural saga filled with all sorts of hypnotic, magical, and surreal imagery such as terrifying Fae shadow creatures, characters walking through mirrors, an animate Hand of Glory, a formerly pirate cook, contests of sorcerous prowess, cruel Witchfinders turned lawyers, mindreaders, and vivid visions invoked by touching inanimate objects. The eponymous Oversight is a secret society situated in London that has been bound for countless generations to protect the waking world from the most dangerous elements of the supernatural–here always referred to by the less common (at least currently) variant, “supranatural”–one, which exists outside of most peoples’ conscious purview. It is composed of liminal people whose blood contains both human and supranatural genetics and who thus straddle both worlds, and although there is no limit as to how many members can be in the group at any given time, the absolute minimum is five, which is why it is referred to as a Hand, with each person a separate “finger”. As long as there are five fingers, London and the outside world are safe. But as the ominous nursery rhyme tagline for the book goes, “When they fall, so do we all.” Now, technically, the Oversight has all but fallen a few times without the world being irretrievably lost to darkness. In times of hopeless crisis, when there are only five members left and they are facing insurmountable odds, the Oversight encloses their most precious magical objects into waterproof coffins that they chain up and sink to the bottom of the Thames, and disbands, all of the fingers heading off in completely different...

Labyrinth is one of my all-time favorite Jim Henson productions. I have gone on about it at length in the past. That is why I was particularly excited when I found out that the Archaia Company would be re-releasing a special edition of the novelization written by A. C. H. Smith that accompanied the film’s original release, along with subsequent new editions of the The Dark Crystal and The Storyteller novels. Now, practically every film comes with these media tie-in books, and the majority of them probably aren’t worth reading, but what distinguishes these particular novelizations is that they were overseen by Jim Henson himself. He saw them as an opportunity to expand on the worlds of his fantasy films and show, adding further background worldbuilding details that he couldn’t convey on screen, as well as sequences that either he couldn’t quite get to work or for which he didn’t have the budgetary resources. And so, although the novel was technically written by Smith, Henson himself read every draft (a rarity among movie novelizations, if not completely unprecedented), sending him copious notes and suggestions in order to mold it into a definitive written adaptation of his film. And even today, that love and attention to detail really shows. Much like the film itself, it has aged beautifully. Smith’s prose has a heightened, timeless, fairy tale feel, as does Henson’s film, which keeps it from feeling mired in the 1980s, as I’m sure many novelizations from the time are. Since Labyrinth is a dreamscape, Smith and Henson don’t try to overexplain the world, as that would decrease its sense of mystery and wonder (my guess is that The Dark Crystal novel–which is coming out in June and I’ll be reviewing then–allowed for much more mythology enhancement, much like Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings prologues and appendices), but the ability to be inside Sarah’s head (and, at times, Jareth’s) for nearly the entirety of the journey adds a new, rich layer to her character psychology and the proceedings. We get to understand her even better, particularly through learning about her relationship with her mother, whose actress lifestyle has taken her away from Sarah, a detail only hinted at in the film via press clippings with which she has adorned her mirror. Sarah’s attitude towards her father, stepmother, and half-brother are drawn into even deeper relief,...

It all begins at nighttime on a dark, gaslit street in Victorian London, with a young woman who seems to only speak French, prone to screaming, bound and gagged in a sack, carried by a brutish-looking man called Ketch, who knocks on the door of a particular house on Wellclose Square that is owned by someone only referred to as “the Jew.” As Ketch tells the three figures who answer the door–one a mesmerizing young...

Labyrinth is one of my all-time favorite Jim Henson productions. I have gone on about it at length in the past. That is why I was particularly excited when I found out that the Archaia Company would be re-releasing a special edition of the novelization written by A. C. H. Smith that accompanied the film’s original release, along with subsequent new editions of the The Dark Crystal and The Storyteller novels. Now, practically...

I know what you’re thinking: another vampire series? And, believe me, so was I. Except M. L. Brennan’s Fortitude Scott novels, Generation V and Iron Night are different. No, really. Fortitude is a vampire. Or will be. But he’s not exactly like any vampire or almost-vampire you’ve seen before. In the world of Brennan’s books, vampires aren’t immortal, although they have dizzyingly long life spans,...

S. might very well be the most meta novel ever written, being a book about a book while also itself being the very book that it’s about. To simplify, S. is the story of a pair of university students–one undergrad, one grad–who are poring over the contents of Ship of Theseus, the last novel of a famously cryptic author who ostensibly died in the 1950s, V. M. Straka, whose very identity has never been confirmed. The...

There are a lot of urban fantasy mystery series out there, and after a while, they can all start sounding awfully samey. Investigative protagonist with some level of magical aptitude. Run-ins with vampires, werewolves, and other sorts of supernatural creatures. Noirish tropes. Gradually building mythology-heavy background story arc involving mysterious forces. To be honest, overall, I’ve grown a bit tired of them. And then I...

Mark Helprin’s Winter’s Tale is my very favorite book. I first read it when I was 12 years old, at an age I now admit was perhaps a bit too young to fully grasp all of the nuances and complexities of this rich and cavernous novel. Or perhaps not. What first truly swept me away into its kaleidoscopic, mystifying world were the words. The back cover of my edition quotes a book review from Newsday, proclaiming the novel...